


Destiny's Child

by sp1lt_1nk



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (sort of), Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Fate & Destiny, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Ghouls, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Major Illness, Poisoning, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Sickfic, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Whump, spoilers for The Witcher tv series, that bit where Geralt is in the back of a cart almost dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:47:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22155001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sp1lt_1nk/pseuds/sp1lt_1nk
Summary: He followed the trail of bodies from Cintra. The Nilfguaard army left a wake of them like folsom and jetsam in the wake of a boat. However, the sea would never swallow up the carcasses. Instead, flies and maggots picked away at the fallen men’s flesh.A very self-indulgent character study of when Geralt got bit by the ghoul and was delirious and a more final ending for the first season on Netflix.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 116





	Destiny's Child

He followed the trail of bodies from Cintra. The Nilfguaard army left a wake of them like folsom and jetsam in the wake of a boat. However, the sea would never swallow up the carcasses. Instead, flies and maggots picked away at the fallen men’s flesh. 

Roach picked her way across the field of discarded carcasses, her ears flicked and tail swished as flies fat full of meat lazily pestered her. She whinnied, shaking her head as one of her hooves sank through the rotting torso of a man, as if she were revolted.

“You’ve been through worse, roach,” Geralt soothed her, patting her flank and spurring her onwards towards the dense layer of bodies. 

The smell was foul, almost as bad as the wretched sylvan’s stench. 

Geralt’s keene hearing picked up on a heavy thud and lurching sounds of a body being dragged, a heavy one at that. 

He slipped off roach’s back and winced at the sick crack of bones and a squelch of organs under his feet. 

He left roach a safe distance away, carefully stepping around and over the bodies on the ground. 

An older man was dragging a corpse my her wrists, tugging on her limbs in an attempt to pile up the bodies. 

“Terrible things bestow grave robbers,” the witcher stated in his usual unfazed monotone. The hours of riding silently made his continuously rough voice more gravelly than it had any right to me. 

“Aye, but if I were a grave robber I’d be takin’ their belongings.” the man replied, halting briefly in shock of Geralt breaking the eerie silence. “Was on me way home when I found them. Couldn't much just leave ‘em here now could I?”

The witcher watched as the man continued to lug the half decomposed woman to a pile he had been making. The man had probably been there for hours dragging corpses. 

“You’re the butcher,” the man stated, lightly in awe as he recognized the witcher’s golden eyes, the pupils of carved black stark against a moonlit iris. 

“If I were a butcher, you would be scattered amongst the corpses.” Geralt deadpanned, prodding absently at a Nilffgaard soldier with the toe of his boot.

The man finished dragging the woman and let her fall limply to the ground. “Poor souls,” he mused sadly, “left to be eaten by ravens.”

Geralt swore he heard something shift underground, the leaves rustling just slightly, too deliberate to be a stray gust of wind. 

“Not just Ravens,” he muttered. 

The moon had been full in the sky as he had tracked the path of the Cirian refugees. The trail undoubtedly ended here in the clearing. The full mone brought many unwanted things in its silver wake. 

“Wolves?” the man asked, worry creasing his brow as he lent to grab another set of wrists and start the process all over again. 

“No.”

“Another set of hands would make this faster, make a little better of the wasted life here,” the man suggested openly.

Geralt only grunted, giving a low whistle for roach. “I am not better and the only thing you should be doing faster is leaving,” he said under his breath as he swiftly clambered back onto roach. 

It was meer moments later that he heard the muffled screams and shouts from the man. 

Groaning, Geralt turned roach around, heading back for the clearing. Stupid humans involving themselves in things that dint concern them, selfless deeds that only got them killed. Pitty for the dead always fell on deaf ears. 

Two ghoul-like creatures had sprung from the ground, their sunken in and featureless faces howling in anger. Undoubtedly they were feasting on the bodies like the scavenger they were. 

Today they were brave, lunging for the man even though they never ate fresh meat. 

“Fuck off.” Geralt hissed as he pulled out his silver-plated sword, her metal singing as she was pulled free from her sheath. The sword sliced through the neck of one of the ghouls. 

The other, determining Geralt to be the greater threat, let go of the man and lunged for the witcher. 

Within moments more and moor ghouls erupted from the bloodsoaked ground and Geralt was easily outnumbered. 

He swung in vain, trying to distance the clawing hands and snarling faces away from him. His sword cut through a few of them before getting lodged in one, half the blade sticking out of the monster. 

Growing frustrated and cursing his moral code, he started to break off parts fo the ghouls; a neck here, an arm there. Legs snapped and jaws broke. 

By the time all the ghouls had been killed, the man had fled. Of course, now he ran.

A dull, but painfull, twinge in his leg made the witcher glance down. A piece of his pants had been torn clean off as in its place a deep set of teeth marks were engraved in his skin. 

“Fuck.” 

Ghouls weren’t normally poisonous, but something had definitely entered his bloodstream. He could feel it slowly coursing through his body. 

_shit._ he thought back to his training, anything he’d learned form healers. If it was in his blood, he didn’t want it to get to his heart or his brain. slowing down his heart rate would slow down the spreading.

He focused on controlling his ragged breathing, slowly feeling his heart rate slow as well. However, this meant the adrenaline that had been coursing through him plummeted. The witcher had to grit his teeth as the onslaught of pain hit him full force. 

Steeling his features, Geralt limped toward his sword. It still as buried deep in a ghoul’s body, but it was easier to yank free now that the creature was dead. 

“Roach,” he groaned just as his legs buckled under him, sending him sprawling to he forest floor. 

He lost the fight with his consciousness, feeling his eyes roll back in his head and his vision slowly faded with each blink until darkness claimed him. 

He groaned as light pierced through his heavy eyelids. His head was being jostled side to side, only adding to his growing headache and nausea. 

“Oi, careful there.” came a voice from behind him. Rough hands pushed him back down on his back, despite his attempts to push himself up. “Easy there, butcher. You got bit-” the man continued but Geralt’s vison only tunnelled, the rest of his words getting lost in the disarray of sounds.

“Come now, stake awake.”

Geralt wasn’t sure what he should focus on first, the searing pain pulsing from his leg or the nauseating spinning of his head. He took a dizzying look at the bite. The skin surrounding it was enflamed and angry, dark vein crawled up his leg away from the wound. 

“Shit.” he cursed, his tongue thick in his mouth and his cheeks numb. 

He was still being shaken by… a cart? Geralt was slowly losing consciousness again, the bone achingly deep thrum of the bite tugging him back under. Despite the man’s protests, Geralt’s eyes fluttered closed once more.

He woke in a dazed state, sweat dripping from his brow into his eyes. The dreams of a crimson-haired woman still dancing in the corner of his eye. When he looked, however, she liquified like smoke. 

“Ma,” he mumbled, teeth grinding together as the cart under him rumbled over stones. 

“Stay with me, do you hear? Don't you die on my watch." Geralt only let out a moan as the man pushed him back down on his back, his disoriented and unsure hands weakly trying to fight the opposing force "Not on my watch!” the man growled as Geralt's eyes rolled in their sockets. 

The rumbling and jerking of the cart paused as the man behind him leaned over him. A sharp slap sent him growling, yellow eyes wild and searching for the threat. 

“Come on, butcher.” came the man’s exasperated voice as he tried to force water down the witcher’s throat now that he was somewhat lucid.

Most of it spilled from the corners of his mouth. When the cool water hit his tongue Geralt swore he’d never been thirstier, greedily gulping down the sweet liquid. 

A cool, damp cloth was rested on his forehead. a few drops rolled down his flushed face and Geralt sighed, eyelids closing. 

“Don't!” came a panicked yelp. Hands grabbed his shoulders, shaking him back awake. Groaning, Geralt tried to push them off but only succeeded in aggravating the wound. 

The fire that was sent through his leg had the mutant arching his back in agony, teeth grinding against one another in a painful grimace. 

The cart started again and Geralt felt the water sloshing in his stomach unpleasantly. In a sudden movement, he was leaning over the side of the cart, a thin stream of liquid bile purged from his stomach, the rest of the water sitting heavily in his stomach. 

The man was talking but all of Geralt’s energy was spent trying to hold back heaves. 

A heavy thump on the back had him lurching farther over the side and watered down stomach acid splashed on the side of the road. His nose burned as he gasped for air, the futile attempt being cut off as another gush of vomit hit the ground. 

He dry heaved for an eternity before he was manhandled back into the cart, a rag wiping away the spittle and bile clinging to his lips. 

He was thankful for the sweet release of sleep soon after.

He has shaken awake again. Geralt was starting to resent the cart. That was until he realized that hands were firmly gripping his shoulders and jostling him.

“Fuck… off..” he snarled, dragging his eyes to focus on the man in front of him. 

“You were talkin’ in yer sleep.”

Ignoring the merchant, Geralt looked around, searching for the woman that had been there moments before. “Where is she?” he demanded, sitting up, “the woman, where is she?” 

“You called for so many,” the man chuckled with worried eyes, pushing the witcher back against the tree he had been propped up upon. 

Geralt sat there, dazed until the man returned. A bowl of watered down stew or soup in his hands. Wordlessly the man spoonfed him, having to set down the bowl to snap some sense into the witcher when he drifted off.

Later, when they were back on the road, the meagre supper was brought back up over the side of the cart. 

“My bag,” Geralt spluttered between heaves. “ where is my-” he groaned as his stomach cramped futilely with nothing left to expel. “Where’s my bag?”

The merchant quickly retrieved the witcher’s satchel from roach, the horse whinnying in annoyance as he fumbled with the straps. 

“Here,” he said, thrusting the saddlebag at Geralt. 

Fumbling, Geralt was able to eventually find the proper potion, tipping back half the burning liquid. The other half he poured on the open wound, gasping in pain as the potion cauterizing the would a little, the sizzling of flesh had both men gaging. 

He was able to catch fleeting moments for the rest of the cart ride. The merchant insisted upon bringing him back to his home, denying his protests of travelling to the blue mountains, and later, sodden. 

His unfocused daze was broken when the cart finally came to stop. 

A woman stood outside a small house, arms crossed but a relieved smile on her face. 

“Yurga!” she cried, arms opening wide as she hugged him, “thank gods you’re safe. The war is close but we are okay.”

Geralt tuned out their conversation. He was feeling more lucid than he had for a long time. 

“-I met a girl, an orphan, in the forest.”

A memory tugged at Geralt’s fuzzy mind, one that had been haunting him ever since the ball many many years ago. 

“The girl in the woods will be with you, always,” came a whisper that sounded and felt like Renfri’s dying words on his skin and in his head.

_...the girl in the woods..._

He hauled himself out of the cart and started towards the forest’s edge, limping badly. He was desperate. The weeks of looking for the child he’d promised to look after were catching up to him now. He was exhausted. Each step felt harder than the last. 

Soon he was in deep withing the wood, unsure of the way he came.

“Renfri?” he whispered as a flash of a green cloak caught the corner of his eyes. 

_she is your destiny_

Geralt spun around, his legs feeling like lead in quicksand. 

A faint hint of gooseberries and lavender caused him to take in a deep breath, eyes flying open.

When had he shut them?

“Yennifer? Yen?” he called out into the trees. A sudden flash of purple and-

Only crocuses opening lazily in the dappled sun. 

His legs buckled under him in defeat. He’d lost her, the child of surprise.

Twiggs snapped somewhere nearby and Geralt’s head snapped up despite his strength being sapped from him. 

A young girl with golden blond hair was staring at him, eyes wide and mouth hanging open slightly. Her royal blue overcoat stood out amongst the forest of soft greens and browns. her hair shone in the sunlight as she ran through golden beames of sun piercing the canopy of trees.

“Geralt?” she sobbed, crashing into his chest and wrapping her smaller arms around him. “Geralt of Riva?”

His huge hands came up around her, returning the ferocious hug, one of his hands cradling her head as she cried. Her soft hair under his fingers was strange after all the unpleaset things Geralt had ever known. 

“Two people linked my destiny will always find each other,” he mumbled. 

“I thought I would never find you.” the girl, Cirilla, he remembered, clung to him, her head abe to rest on his shoulder when he was brought down to his knees. 

“You found me, you found me. Everything will be okay now.” she soothed, petting her hair gently as he would with roach when she got too worked up. “I'll protect you, I promise.”


End file.
